


Black Maiden

by TheDarkFlygon



Series: Glass Cannon Blues [4]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Black 2 & White 2 | Pokemon Black 2 & White 2 Versions
Genre: Alternate Universe, Developing Friendships, Dialogue Heavy, First Meetings, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Telepathy, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24225508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkFlygon/pseuds/TheDarkFlygon
Summary: Aspertia City's Trainer School is haunted by the "Schoolground Banshee", a ghost to who hearsay gives a wide array of threatening powers. Hearing all of the rumours spread by his students, one of its teachers goes to see if he can bust this myth once and for all.Instead, he comes across a lost soul in the school's gardens.
Relationships: Cheren & Sirnight | Gardevoir
Series: Glass Cannon Blues [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657786
Kudos: 5





	1. Atrum Omen

**Author's Note:**

> Niche idea? Check.  
> Niche OC idea bordering on Mary-Sue territories? Check.  
> Taking canon characters and running very far with them? Check.  
> Welcome to Glass Cannon's Blues.
> 
> I really wanted to make a character debut for GCB, namely, Magdalene.  
> I accidentally created her when coming up with another plot, and since then, she's grown on me way too much for me not to make her into her own character. She's a Gardevoir, but her father is a Gothitelle, so her appearance is closer to these variants you'd see a lot a couple years back! I just really wanted to play around with the concept of Pokémon variations and, while I was at it, a telepath character. Maggie is both.
> 
> This is overall very OOC by canon's standards and takes place in the same continuity as "Carry On, Teach", except it's set a couple months after the events from that story. That's how I vibe, yeet.

Cheren has never been someone to look into rumours. Living in the small-scaled town of Nuvema (one could argue it’s closer to a village than a town, even if Professor Juniper’s laboratory being located there helps it be considered a town rather than some forgotten rural hole with houses in it) should have; yet it didn’t. He’s never cared for hearsay and unfounded tales.

Perhaps actually seeing Reshiram and Zekrom fly around in the Unovan sky should have changed his mind about that; but it just didn’t. He supposes he just never has had any interest in the impossible to verify.

Nevertheless, Cheren’s been listening to his students every morning and every afternoon. He’s heard of the myth of a “schoolground banshee”, of a mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of the school’s garden. Some say a wail accompanies its steps, while other say it’s entirely silent. Some call the figure a “it”, others call the “ghost” a “she”; but the one thing that is sure is that nobody knows with any sort of certainty what this “banshee” is.

He’s also heard all sorts of things about this creature can do. It can teleport, it can speak, it can poison – it can do everything, it’d seem, omnipotent and scarier than the prospect of Arceus Itself. He sincerely doubts this is an undiscovered Legendary, even less a Mythical, albeit he supposes the latter is still somehow possible considering how many of these have been discovered in the recent days. In all cases, this is most likely a myth.

And yet, even with all the disbelief he’s thrown onto the situation, he’s still found himself in the school’s gardens because of the “schoolground banshee” haunting his students.

To be fair, Cheren hadn’t heard his class sound so concerned for a while (the previous time being when he was himself afflicted with something, namely, an inflamed appendix; but pondering upon that has no point nor purpose at the moment), so he didn’t quite think twice, for once. He assumed he’d think on the way there, but he arrived there before he could have done any actual thinking. It’s convenient in a weird way, he supposes.

Sophie and Lily went to fetch him up, telling him Rudy had gotten into troubles with the Schoolground Banshee and that she could harm him, urging him to save their classmate. It was as if his legs suddenly got possessed, propelling him out of the classroom before he really realized what he was getting himself too, with nothing but Stoutland’s Ball on him to defend himself. Not that he expects to be attacked per say, but the frantic tone of Sophie’s voice took a toll on its disbelief.

The garden is calm, with only the sound of a gentle breeze going through the trees and his footsteps going carefully through the place while trying to spot any sort of figure nearby. There seems to be nobody around, and yet he can feel a sort of presence, of otherworldly aura who overwhelms him a little, as if urging him to get out of here and never think of coming back.

Despite the threatening nature of the atmosphere and the fact he knows this must be a foolish thing to do, Cheren follows the aura to the best of his abilities, eventually stumbling into the deepest part of the gardens: the end of them, surrounded by tall trees and flowers which haven’t bloomed yet, with a millennium-old willow as its centre piece.

The sound of the wind is now accompanied by rustling noise, telling him someone else really is here. His hunch turns out to be right as soon as he spots Rudy on one side of the willow, its branches almost hiding him as his body is halfway out of them and halfway under its leafy dome. He looks worried, threatened, holding his Purrloin’s Ball in front of him as a means of self-defence while something else makes him step backwards little by little. Concerned, intrigued and feeling a sense of duty running in his veins, Cheren tries sneaking on the situation, profiting from the sound of the wind in the willow’s branches to cover his tracks. On the other side of the face-off is quite the sight: a black-and-white Gardevoir towering over a prepubescent boy, vivid blue eyes staring right into his.

A few questions immediately rise to his mind as Cheren gets closer and closer, taunting him with knowledge he should probably be holding by now: how did a Gardevoir, a species that can’t naturally be found in Unova, make its way to a school’s garden? For how long as it been there? Why is this one mostly black with white accents where it should’ve been white and green (or, in the case of a shiny, pinkish white with blue accents, but that doesn’t solve the question), why are its eyes blue instead of red (or orange)? Why is the lower half of its body resembling a four-tiered dress rather than the strips its species is known for?

Wait, could this be the Schoolground Banshee that has terrified his class?

Cheren doesn’t quite have the time to overthink that one, considering it’d seem like Rudy is about to attack it. It’s a stupid move, but he can’t blame a prepubescent boy feeling threatened from feeling, well, threatened and stuck in a terrible position. Still, this Gardevoir is feeling just as menaced, and it’s about to attack, as he can tell by its eyes suddenly shining brighter. Quick, he needs to do something!

_Rudy, watch out!_

He runs to them, pushing his student out of harm’s way.

The commotion that ensues confuses him. He hears Rudy fall to the ground with a thump, then hears a Pokéball roll on the ground and, finally, hears himself fall, but not after he hears something else that’s much more worrisome to think of: a sludge wave heading straight into his direction, hitting him as gravity pulls him to the ground. If he isn’t mistaken (and he could be), this is Toxic.

When he pushes himself back into a sitting position, he finds himself staring straight into the Gardevoir’s eyes, whose shine is now gone, and replaced with something akin to grief. He could also be wrong there, but it seems… guilty? It also looks like it’s about to flee, so he gathers his forces and grab its arm before it can escape from his grasp.

“Who are you?” He asks, rasping a little.

To his surprise, it turns back in his direction, sitting down in front of him. Its eyes are mesmerizing, yet he doesn’t feel scared when staring right into them. Before long, however, he has to break eye contact due to a headache suddenly assaulting him, filling his thoughts with some that aren’t his own, speaking in an inside voice that isn’t his.

_My name is Magdalene. I’m in search for my Trainer._

When the communication cuts off, it’s like he’s been taken off a spell cast on him, leaving him a little dizzy. Despite the pain he can already see heading his way and the growing dizziness, he’s been close to figuring out the solution to an important issue amongst his students.

“You’re searching for your Trainer, huh… What has brought you here, then? I don’t believe anyone searching for a Gardevoir has ever shown up.”

_We got separated far, far away from here. He once told me he was from Unova, so I went searching for him on this island; but he isn’t here, and I have no home anymore._

Magdalene’s inner voice is eerily identical to a human when they communicate. It’s close to a calm and composed woman’s voice, albeit it echoes in his mind, but that could be due to the telepathic powers Magdalene uses to speak to him in his language. Rudy, on the other hand, has gone silent, sitting nearby with his knees pulled against his chest. Poor boy. At least, he’s safe and sound as long as the Gardevoir is focused on him rather than his student. Speaking of which…

“What I’m getting is that you’ve been roaming across Unova for a long time, but haven’t found your Trainer in all that time, and that’s how you arrived in our school’s garden.”

_Yes, that’d be how it happened. But, tell me, human: why does nobody want to talk to me?_

That question surprises Cheren despite already knowing the answer to it: it’d be obvious that people are threatened by Magdalene’s unsettling appearance, atypical for their region, atypical for a Gardevoir. Moreover, his students are young and impressionable, to the point they thought they had seen a ghost or a sort of death ripper roaming around their school and must have felt threatened as a result of a fear of the unknown. That can’t have possibly helped.

 _I see_ , Magdalene tells him before he can actually say anything out loud. _That’d explain why people glare at me…_

“You can read minds?!”

_When someone is open to communicating with me, yes. I promise I don’t mean harm._

His headache keeps worsening and it feels like his skull is about to break, yet he doesn’t want to interrupt the conversation for such a selfish reason. Is the sudden shift between heat and coldness a side effect of telepathy too?

 _Why are you forcing yourself to speak to me?_ Magdalene asks. _You’re clearly unwell. You shouldn’t be communicating with me if it makes you ill._

“I’m… I’ll be fine. I want to solve your problem first.”

_You’re poisoned. You need help. I’m sorry._

“Don’t worry about it for now,” he replies with what he now guesses is a fever clutching his throat. “Please tell me what I can do for you, Magdalene.”

_Then, please tell me who you are. Please tell me why you’re so insistent on helping me, even if it comes to such a price. Why aren’t you like the other humans?_

It takes some time for the turmoil in his mind to form coherent sentences as poison spreads from the wounds on his arms to his brain. He tells Rudy to call for help in the meantime, in an attempt to both ensure his safety (or, rather, what’s left of it), and reassure his unlikely interlocutor.

“My name is Cheren. I’m a teacher here. In fact, I’ve heard about you from my students because they were scared of you. I just wanted to know if that was true and, if it was, to see what I could do to fix the situation. That’s why I want you to find your Trainer again, even if you must be exhausted from roaming around Unova. I want to help you do so.”

_But we just met. You should be afraid of me. Everyone has been staring at me all this time, fearing me whenever I walked too close to them, so why aren’t you afraid?_

“Why would I be? You’ve never attacked anyone without it being some sort of self-defence, haven’t you?”

_I poisoned you._

“You didn’t mean it. You could have used a more powerful move and killed me instead, yet you chose the one way we humans could fix. You’re simply… lost, Magdalene. That’s why I want to help you. You deserve better than how you’ve been treated so far.”

He can see tears in her eyes, whenever he can look at her and not feel like his head is about to split apart. His vision is starting to blurry and sounds, apart from Magdalene’s echoing voice, are muffled. He can still hear a couple additional voices, though…

_Please close your mind to me, Cheren. You’re hurting. You’ve done enough._

“I… I should be able to at least… do something for you. What about joining my team, even if it’s… temporary?”

He can feel Stoutland’s Ball shaking inside his pocket, ready to burst open to protect him. He keeps a hand on it: he doesn’t want his most trusted Pokémon to startle accidentally or purposefully her.

_Do you really want me around?_

“Of course.” He retrieves, from his pocket, a Luxury Ball he forgot he still had until now, between the two of them. “At least, you’ll have a place to rest and be safe in until we can find your Trainer again.”

He can’t see much of anything anymore, the migraine and the fever corrupting his vision to oblivion, but he’s certain he can see her arm touch the ball in front of her.

_Thank you for listening to me. I’m forever grateful for your understanding._

“You’re… welcome…”

_Now, please take a rest. I’ll take care of everything else._

He watches a flash invade his vision as distorted screams come his way, but at the end of the day, all he can feel is the ball in his hands and his consciousness leave.


	2. Alba Anima

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got no excuse for this chapter being so damn late, and yet... writer's block hit me hard and I got inspired by other stories of mine instead. I'm relieved to be able to say that I've finished this story, however, as late as said ending is coming. It's a bad second half, so I may get around to editing/changing it later, but for now, consider this story finished.  
> Stay tuned for more GCB sooner or later!

Angela is used to telepathic shenanigans just enough to know when some sort of psychic creature is pained by something. That applies even to the ones she just met through circumstances as she could’ve expected. Damn kid.

“Hey, don’t make such a face. He’ll be fine. Just give him a couple minutes to wake up,” she tells her newest encounter.

To be fair to Cheren’s brain failure, this Gardevoir is closer to a human than she could’ve thought. With all the respect she owes Sybil for being a creature capable of telepathy, her abilities are far less impressive than this one mon’s. She can easily tell why Rudy was telling her his teacher was suffering from headaches: with psychic powers this strong, that Gardevoir could easily annihilate someone’s grey matter like you’d shatter glass if throwing it from a great height.

Gardevoir’s name is Magdalene, if she isn’t wrong. That’s what Rudy said, at least, when she saw the two of them bring the kid back from the gardens. It’d seem like their new guest is an abandoned Pokémon who got split from her original Trainer, but when she got welcomed with the sight of a poisoned teenager carried by psychic powers with his student in tow, Magdalene had already changed Trainers. She’s been eyeing her own ball from time to time.

“No, I’m serious. He’s gonna be fine,” she repeats.

Magdalene only replies with small gestures. According to Rudy, she had an entire conversation with Cheren, but it’d seem like she just has less of a connection with her than he does. It’d make sense, considering she’s a bit doubtful and Magdalene is concerned. They both aren’t in a good state to open a telepathic conversation.

“Just, you know, lie it low on the telepathy for a little while. He needs to get used to it.”

It turns out that she was wrong.

 _Why so?_ A stranger’s inner voice comes to her mind. She really _is_ migraine-inducing to hear. _Wait, does it hurt people when I do this?_

“Yeah, it kinda does. I’m used to it and even my head hurts. You’ve never learnt how to control your powers, haven’t you?”

_My Trainer never reacted this way._

“Considering you look like you were bred on purpose, I’d assume they were used to your abilities ever since you were a Ralts. Unfortunately for you, Cheren just isn’t used to that sort of things. He’s still a kid,” Angela replies while glancing at the thermometer she just got out of her patient’s mouth. “By the way, you’re in luck: this guy’s health is naturally resilient. He’ll really be fine by the next few hours.”

_Kid?_

“You’re really closer to humans that I thought, huh. You didn’t catch that this dude was still a teenager?”

_I’d have never guessed._

“To be fair, me neither. That’s what you get when you force yourself to grow up too fast.”

Magdalene looks confused.

“To go back to telepathic shenanigans, I’m not saying you can’t communicate this way with him. I’m just saying you’ll have to take it slow until he can bear the toll that telepathy can take on our measly human brains.”

_How come you’re used to it, then?_

“My ace’s got the same mind-reading powers as you. She sometimes helps me around the infirmary, but sometimes, she just prefers chilling at my place. Today’s one of those days. Maybe you two would get along, now that I think about it.”

They both go silent as she takes care of the kid. As much as she shouldn’t be referring to a teacher like that, if she doesn’t, nobody is going to remind Cheren he’s just a teenager who can, like all teenagers, do stupid things like throwing himself in the jaws of an unknown danger when he could’ve just called Stoutland to intimidate said danger away. Magdalene seems to be physically frail, like every Gardevoir out there, and it’d have probably successfully scared her off.

Well, to be fair, Cheren may have made the right call in the sense scaring such a powerful creature could have gotten very dangerous. There was a kid on the scene, after all, and if Cheren could have survived with heavy injuries, Rudy would’ve most likely died upon impact. Getting the threat to calm down may as well have been the best course of action. The kid’s more intelligent than she gives him credit for.

She may not have injured him directly, Magdalene nonetheless roughed him up. Being a human taking a Toxic to the arms, even if only a little part of it, tends to do this. He wasn’t prepared, she was too late to prevent her move from hitting him, and now she’s stuck with both of them in her infirmary. Well, at least, his fever didn’t take long to break. Bless the people who invented and improved Antidotes and Full Heals.

The more she thinks about it, the more messed-up it gets. This is a sixteen-year-old willing to throw his future away for the sake of a kid only a couple years younger than he is, with his assailant now silently weeping in guilt nearby, and that’s all because he somehow — and against all odds – correctly guessed reasoning with a crazed Gardevoir would be a good idea. It’d seem like the appendicitis episode didn’t really change his mind on that. Too bad, that’s the one thing she’d have liked. Yes, she knows, she should be admiring his professional mindset and he’s such a natural at this, but still…

_Appendicitis episode?_ Magdalene sends her.

“I don’t think you guys have appendixes, so you probably won’t be able to relate, but all you need to know is that your new Trainer is a dumb, dumb teenager who will do dumb things. Come to think of it, what do you know about him? He’s kind of a secretive guy, so you won’t be getting too much info out of him.”

_He told me his name. He’s a teacher. He’s younger than my Trainer. He’s kind. That’s all I know._

“Of _course_ he introduced himself as a _teacher_ rather than anything else…” Angela mutters behind her teeth before going back to her normal voice, looking into her interlocutor’s eyes. “Yeah, you’ll quickly learn he’s more than that. Still, could you tell me a bit about you?”

_Why so?_

“You kind of popped out of nowhere, scared the kids away and injured a teacher. I want to disprove that you’re a threat as much as possible, and even though I doubt Cheren is going to report that incident himself, I don’t trust anyone else that was on the scene to shut up about it.”

_I see._

“What about you let me examine you and ask some questions? That way, I can also check if you’re in good health.”

_Sure._

Leaving Cheren alone for a little, Angela invites Magdalene to sit down on a nearby stool, which she does immediately. For a rogue creature that has terrorized the school for the last couple weeks, she’s diligent and obedient which, all things considered, isn’t too weird: she’s clearly a half-breed, which means someone had to have purposefully bred her, then trained her until she reached her last evolution stage.

Judging by her appearance, Magdalene’s father is a Gothitelle: the colours are a perfect match. The fourth spike she has on each side of her head are reminiscent of a Gothitelle’s antennae for sure. Her blue eyes are the last proof Angela needs to determine her surprise patient’s origins. This creature has absolutely been bred for some motive she has no idea of, yet she doesn’t mean any harm, so it’d seem she wasn’t bred for competitive purposes: if she wanted to hurt either of them, she’d have blasted both of their brains out. She seems trustworthy enough for now.

However, a couple things about her are just plain _weird_ about her. Why did she come to a _school_ to search for a seasoned Trainer? Sure, they may have become a teacher there, but judging from her colleagues (a couple people who never pretended to be good at actual battling, a headmaster she never sees, and a _sixteen-year-old_ rookie Gym Leader) and judging from Magdalene’s utterly confused reaction when she was faced with a teenager, she clearly didn’t know where she was walking into.

Her intentions are somewhat paradoxical. Why is she staying here, getting examined by a nurse she doesn’t know, in a room she doesn’t know, in a place she doesn’t know, when she could very easily escape? Why does this Gardevoir even have the capacity to communicate with humans, actually? How did she develop these abilities, who gave her the training needed for a _Pokémon_ to speak a language invented and used by an entirely other species? Nefarious intents on these people’s parts or not, she shouldn’t hold them against Magdalene who must have little to no idea of why she was born into this world.

“You seem to be in a good enough condition,” she finally comments, letting go of the Pokémon and going to wash her hands with the room’s sink. “That’s surprising, considering you’ve apparently been wandering for so long.”

_I protect myself._

“That’d make sense.”

A short silence follows before a new question hits her mind.

“What do you plan do to now?”

_I… don’t know._

“ _Surely_ you must be joking, Magdalene. The answer to that question is obvious!”

The poor thing stares at her with mild confusion all over her face and eyes, prompting Angela to pick up the Luxury Ball that’s been standing near the bed for the past half an hour or so.

“ _There_ ,” she adds as she shows the Ball in all of its glory to whom belongs inside of it. “That’s yours, isn’t it?”

_It is…_

“I guess you don’t know what I mean, huh? What I’m saying is that you don’t have to wander around anymore, Magdalene. You’ve got a home and you’ve got someone who wants to be your company. You’re no longer on your own and forced to fend for yourself.”

_But, my Trainer…!_

“They can wait for you to have rested, can they? I know it must be anxiety-inducing not to know where the person you’ve spent most of your life is, especially when you have no confirmation if they’ve even still around to begin with; but you deserve to finally enjoy some peace of mind with someone who also tends to think he’s on his own way too often. You could both benefit from each other.”

Magdalene rises from the chair and moves to the side of the bed, observing its inhabitant with a soft gaze that nearly lets tears fall down her face.

“As I told you, Cheren can be stupid at times. He’ll make the dumbest mistakes because of erroneous assumptions. Like you, he doesn’t want people to worry over him, and that’s why his students are always taking the handle of being concerned for him because he just won’t do it by himself. You’ll have to watch over him like he’ll watch over you, sure, but he’s a good kid, he’ll take care of you. You’ve had some luck to cross his path without him ordering his Stoutland to defend that one student you came across.”

_But I…_

“Yes, I know, you attacked him in self-defence because he jumped to protect the kid. He clearly doesn’t hate you for it, so let go of that, okay? You’ll get to go home with him and enjoy some domestic life before you need to cross the seas again to find your original Trainer. For now, Cheren has caught you, and you possess _his_ Trainer ID. Just don’t do it again and the both of you will be fine.”

It’s at this moment that a pair of grey eyes open and, slowly, starts focusing on them.

“I’m in the infirmary… again…”

“Welcome back amongst the living, you _moron_.”

Her patient sits up, rubbing his head with one of his hand, his back soon leaning against the bedframe and pillow that has glided along with it.

“Well, that’s not a very nice thing to say, isn’t it…?”

“Hey, kid, you scared the crap outta me _again_. Cut me some slack.”

Cheren then shifts his focus from her scolds to the one idling in silence nearby, giving _her_ a smile.

“Sorry for scaring you like that, Magdalene. Is everything okay?”

 _Yes_ , she replies before realizing this was a no-no and going silent again.

“Okay, good.” His gaze goes back to Angela. “My apologies for having to get dragged back to your office yet again. When can I go home and leave you alone?”

“Wait for your fever to lower a little further down. I wouldn’t want you to collapse on the way there, even if you’ll have your brand-new guardian angel with you.”

Magdalene nods in reaction.

“You know, Cheren, you really need to consider your survival more often than that. I can’t tell you just how lucky you were to escape from this situation with only minor injuries, minor poisoning and an assailant who actually wasn’t intending on hurting anyone. You’re damn lucky Magdalene wasn’t raised to do harm.”

“I know. I’ll be more careful from now on.”

“You better be.”

The more Angela thinks about the situation, the weirder it gets, but the more she also knows she’ll have to untangle the threads throughout time: to be honest, there is no rush there. Despite the numerous mysteries and shadows surrounding her, Magdalene clearly means well and seems like quite the fit for the lost teenager that is Cheren, so she feels almost confident about his choices. It may not be her place to worry in such personal ways, yet that’s what her instinct tells her and, at this point, she may as well roll with it.

It’s not her place to decide, after all. It’s never been, actually, but this situation just showed her how a seemingly stupid decision did make some sense in the end and, in a way, was probably meant to happen at some point: it’s reassuring to see the one teenager whom she keeps having to watch over take decisions, own to his responsibilities and not make excuses for himself. It’s got its downsides, and Magdalene will more than likely notice them sooner than later.

In the meantime, she may as well take his temperature again and let the fever disappear into the void while a peaceful silence bestows the infirmary. All the questions she has and the ones Cheren has will be answered someday and all they need to do is to wait for them, so may as well start now and merely do her job as a nurse while she waits for these replies to come.


End file.
